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Offshore Drilling Ban Lawsuit Dismissed

By John M. Broder November 4, 2010 10:25 amNovember 4, 2010 10:25 am

The New Orleans federal judge who had ruled the Obama administration’s moratorium on deepwater drilling to be illegal has tossed out the lawsuit challenging the ban, saying that the administration’s lifting of the moratorium last month rendered the matter irrelevant.

ReutersCrew members on an idle oil rig near Port Fourchon, La., in August.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar ordered a halt to all deepwater drilling shortly after the BP Deepwater Horizon accident in April, which killed 11 rig workers and caused the biggest offshore oil spill in American history. He lifted the ban on Oct. 12, saying that the industry had adopted new safety practices and that the government had sufficient resources to deal with another accident. The government asked the federal court to dismiss the lawsuit, filed by a number of Gulf Coast oil service companies.

United States District Court Judge Martin L.C. Feldman, who had twice struck down the moratorium in harsh language, said on Wednesday that the removal of the drilling ban had eliminated the cause of action. “The suspension orders imposing both moratoriums have been lifted,” Judge Feldman said in court papers, according to a Bloomberg report. “The secretary of interior claims no intention to institute a new moratorium; and this court has no right or authority to speculate that the government’s improper conduct will persist.”

He added, “In lifting the moratorium, the government cut the plaintiff’s chief complains at their roots and provided them with the specific relief they seek from this court.”

Many offshore drillers continue to complain that the administration is enforcing a virtual moratorium by imposing burdensome new safety and environmental rules. The government says it will grant permits as soon as companies meet the new standards.

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